Shloka 16
आदित्या वसवो रुद्रा: साश्रिन: पितरो5डपि च । धर्म: श्रुत॑ तपो दीक्षा व्यवसाय: पितामह:
ādityā vasavo rudrāḥ sāśrinaḥ pitaro ’pi ca | dharmaḥ śrutaṃ tapo dīkṣā vyavasāyaḥ pitāmahaḥ ||
Bhīṣma sprach: «Mögen die Ādityas, die Vasus, die Rudras, die Pitṛs und auch Dharma; die heilige Überlieferung (śruti), die Askese (tapas), die Weihe-Disziplin (dīkṣā), die standhafte Entschlossenheit (vyavasāya) und der Welten-Ahn (Pitāmaha) uns beschützen.»
भीष्म उवाच
Educational Q&A
Protection and well-being are grounded in alignment with Dharma and the disciplines that uphold it—sacred learning (śruti), austerity (tapas), consecrated practice (dīkṣā), and steadfast resolve (vyavasāya)—along with reverence for cosmic and ancestral orders.
Bhīṣma is reciting a protective invocation within a broader catalogue of divine and cosmic lineages. He names major classes of gods and moral-spiritual principles, asking them to guard the listeners, thereby framing ethical life as participation in a larger sacred order.